Many think tankers (including R Street Institute's Shoshana Wiessmann, Neera Tanden of CAP, Norm Ornstein of AEI, and Jamie Kirchick of Brookings) at book party hosted by Juleanna Glover and Christopher Reiter in their Kalorama home for Brink Lindsey and Steve Teles' new book.

Thursday, December 21, 2017

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is about to launch a
two-year analysis of Russia’s activist foreign and military policies,
called “The Return of Global Russia: A Reassessment of the Kremlin’s
International Agenda.” The project aims to spotlight ways in which the
Kremlin’s influence has spread far beyond Russia’s immediate neighbors
and is rooted in countries throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The Carnegie project intends to examine the scope of Russia’s
activities abroad, which [Andrew] Weiss in an initial analysis co-written by [Paul]
Stronski said is designed to “compensate for lackluster socioeconomic
conditions at home.”

The project aims to analyze how Russia’s
tactics are evolving, identify which operations may be more annoyance
than menace and examine which pose major threats to the West.

“We
will try to determine where this matters to our interests and where it
doesn’t,” Stronski said. “We pose a lot of questions that we don’t have
clear answers to yet. Over a two-year period, we want to get a better
sense of the economic, security, political and economic threats Russia
may pose and come up with policy guidance. We need to not just look
backwards, but at how they’re adapting.”

Here is an initial paper about the new project, written by Paul Stronski and Richard Sokolsky.

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

The Heritage Foundation has just announced that Kay Coles James, a member of the think tank's Board of Trustees since 2005, will become Heritage's new president on January 1, 2018. She will take over that position from Ed Feulner, the founder of the think tank who became the interim president after the ouster of former president Jim DeMint earlier this year (details here).

Feulner will remain in an advisory role through January 2018 to assistant with the transition. He will also resume his role as chairman of Heritage's Asian Studies Center and Chung Ju-yung fellow.

James, who is African-American, served as director of the Office of
Personnel Management under President George W. Bush and in Ronald
Reagan's Department of Health and Human Services. She also served as
Virginia's secretary of health and human resources and as a member of
the state board of education.

The board of directors sifted through more than 200 résumés before settling on James, who also served on President Donald Trump's transition team.

Politico notes that James was initially interested in joining the Trump Administration but was "blocked." However, she noted that she will probably be "able to do far more" from her post at Heritage than within the administration.

In October, the Washington Post published an article saying that James, a close ally to Feulner, "has been mentioned by several associates as someone who could serve in a temporary capacity if the board cannot settle on a candidate."

In reaction to the announcement, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) said that Heritage made a "brilliant" choice.

Axios says that she led the search committee for the new president and "will be able to represent Heritage's core values."

In a Daily Signal Q&A, James notes that after she became a serious candidate for the position, she stepped down from the search committee and Ed Meese took it over.

Zack Stanton of Politico says that this likely makes Kay Coles James "the most influential black conservative woman in America."

Here is what the Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin has to say about the new selection.

The Christian Post outlines the four things you need to know about Heritage's new president.

NYT headline: "Heritage Foundation Names New President After Turmoil Under DeMint."

Here is a Wall Street Journal editorial on Heritage and the new president.

While the announcement has so far received lots of praise, some have not been so positive. For example, Tariq Nasheed, a film producer and media personality, said that "Heritage, a think tank that puts out white supremacist propaganda like Black People have lower IQ's, has named its first black female president to mask their anti-black agenda."

Human Rights Campaign says that James worked for a "designated hate group" Family Research Council and "compared LGBTQ people to drug addicts, alcoholics, and adulterers."

Here is a new Tevi Troy piece on the history of presidents' relationships with think tanks.

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

The national dialogue on sexual harassment and sexual assault in the workplace is inching closer to think tank land, as a new movement surfaces to document harassment in academia. Here is more from Metroland Media Group:

They may not be as well known as Harvey Weinstein or Matt Lauer, but
across North America there are hundreds of men accused of sexual
harassment and assault holding great power over the women in their
academic fields.

Women often didn't report the misconduct because they were
worried it would end their career in an insulated, precarious industry
where they depend on the recommendations of powerful men to get to the
next step.

The stories of these women, ranging from grad students to
professors, are now collected in a database started by Oregon-based
Karen Kelsky, a former tenured professor who now runs an academic
consulting business.

She started a survey on Friday and at press time had already
received more than 1,000 responses, including a handful that name the
University of Toronto and York University.

The hashtag #MeTooPhD is being used to document various stories of harassment and sexual assault in academia.

Think Tank Watch has heard a number of stories over the years about sexual harassment at think tanks, and it would not be surprising if you start seeing prominent think tankers getting fired.

Quartz has recently reported that think tankers are among those in the national security field that have signed a letter saying they have been harassed at work.

In fact, former Portland mayor Sam Adams has just left his job as director of the World Resources Institute (WRI) after allegations that he made sexually inappropriate comments in the workplace.

Also, Jefferson Smith recently resigned less than two weeks after being chosen as executive director of the left-leaning state-level think tank Oregon Center for Public Policy. The resignation came after the think tank received a letter calling his hiring "damaging and destructive to women."

Sunday, December 10, 2017

The head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency is warning that
China is using social networks to try to cultivate sources of
information.

Hans-Georg Maassen said in comments released Sunday
that his agency is so far aware of 10,000 German citizens targeted by
China, in particular politicians and members of government agencies.
Using primarily LinkedIn, Maassen said China’s spy agency has
established multiple fake profiles to pose as headhunting agencies,
consulting firms, think-tanks or researchers.

China has also been
using so-called “supply-chain attacks” in cyberspace, whereby they
target IT workers and others to find a backdoor into the networks of
organizations they’re interested in, Maassen said.

Here is a recent Think Tank Watch post on a Chinese think tank used to recruit a US spy.

Here is a post from 2014 about Chinese hackers targeting Middle East experts at think tanks.

Saturday, December 9, 2017

The US State Department has strong ties to a number of US think tanks and provides them millions of dollars for various studies and other activities. Here is a recent example:

A little known bureau of the U.S. State Department is giving
nearly $1 million to a Washington think tank to promote peace in
Venezuela and start identifying the building blocks for a new
democratically run government.

But critics already see
it as an effort by State to train the opposition at dialogue that
undercuts President Donald Trump’s push to force Venezuelan President
Nicolás Maduro to restore democracy.

“It’s a waste of
taxpayer money,” said one congressional source familiar with the
program. “They’ve tried to dialogue repeatedly and it hasn’t worked. It
just buys Maduro time.”

The State Department’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization
Operations paid $900,000 to the Atlantic Council in September with
instructions to “promote non-violent conflict resolution” in Venezuela.

The council said the
year-long project’s aim is to draw more international attention to the
crisis, show the public what Venezuela could look like under new
leadership and provide the opposition and other stakeholders the tools
needed to work more cohesively together.

But the effort is
already generating no small amount of controversy. According to people
inside the U.S. government who favor a harder line against Maduro, the
Atlantic Council spending is an effort by State to train the opposition
to negotiate and prepare for a future if the government collapses while
other parts of Trump’s administration have insisted on a
sanctions-driven strategy.

The article goes on to note that the Atlantic Council will have two people dedicated to the year-long project, adding that working with local partners, the think tank will conduct research and organize gatherings with those involved in the opposition and other stakeholders. Among other things, the think tank will also bring leaders to Washington for public events.

The Atlantic Council gets funding from a wide variety of sources, including a number of US government agencies as well as foreign governments.

Wednesday, December 6, 2017

Here is more from The Times at the London-based think tank Legatum Institute:

A think tank with close links to Conservative Brexiteers is be
reviewed by the head of a parliamentary committee that scrutinises the
work of the intelligence agencies.

Concerns have been raised about links between the Legatum Institute and the Brexit
department and the background of the think tank’s main financier and
founder, Christopher Chandler, a New Zealand-born tycoon who made part
of his fortune with his company, Legatum Group, via investments in
Russia.

Dominic Grieve, chairman of the intelligence and security committee, told The Sunday Times that he would “scope” the institute as part of preparations for investigation into Russian activities against the UK.

In the latest University of Pennsylvania think tank rankings, Legatum was named as the 82nd best think tank in Western Europe.

The Financial Times reports about a recent "purge" at the think tank (as does Daily Mail).

The think tank has rejected claims that it has links with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Here is what openDemocracy has to say about who is behind Legatum's funding.

Pro-transparency advocate Transparify has just released a new study showing that Canadian think tanks lag behind their US and UK brethren when it comes to funding transparency.

The group rated 14 Canadian think tanks on their levels of online disclosure related to funding, finding that only half of the policy research and advocacy organizations rated are broadly or highly transparent.

Four think tanks (and related organizations), including Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) and International Institute for Sustainable Development, received a top rating of five-starts for being "highly transparent."

Meanwhile, four think tanks were considered "highly opaque" in terms of transparency, including the Fraser Institute, Conference Board of Canada, Montreal Economic Institute, and Pembina Institute.

Here is a Globe and Mail piece on the new report (subscription needed).

The full Transparify report can be found here. A 2017 Transparify report on UK think tank funding can be found here. And here is the group's 2016 survey of 200 think tanks in 47 countries.

Transparify was originally funded by George Soros' Open Society Foundations but no longer receives funding from that group.

The Johns Hopkins University’s School
of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), located just a short walk from
Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C., is one of the top international
relations schools in the United States. Its graduates feed into a
variety of government agencies, from the State Department to the CIA,
and the military. Its China studies program is especially well known;
many graduates come away with expert knowledge of the language, culture,
and politics of the United States’ most important strategic competitor.

In August, SAIS announced
a new endowed professorship in the China Studies department as well as a
new research project called the Pacific Community Initiative, which
aims to examine “what China’s broader role in Asia and the world means
for its neighbors and partners.”

What the SAIS press release did not
say is that the money for the new initiatives came in part from the
China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), a Hong Kong-based
nonprofit. CUSEF is a registered foreign agent bankrolled by a
high-ranking Chinese government official with close ties to a sprawling
Chinese Communist Party apparatus that handles influence operations
abroad, known as the “united front.”

The China-U.S. Exchange Foundation’s partnership with a premier U.S. academic institution comes amid a Chinese Communist Party push
to strengthen its influence over policy debate around the globe. The
Chinese government has sought to repress ideas it doesn’t like and to
amplify those it does, and its efforts have met with growing success.

The article goes on to note that CUSEF, founded in 2008 by Tung Chee-hwa, a Hong Kong shipping magnate, has cooperated on projects with other prominent US institutions such as the Brookings Institution, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Atlantic Council, Center for American Progress (CAP), East-West Institute, and Carter Center.

Monday, December 4, 2017

Sebastian Gorka, a former Deputy Assistant to President Donald Trump, has long been affiliated with a number of think tanks, and he has now attached himself with a think tank that has deep ties to the Trump Administration. Here is more from Daily Beast:

Former White House counterterrorism aide and notorious sidewalk-parker
Sebastian Gorka has landed a new professional gig on top of his newly
minted Fox News contributorship: Gorka is now a paid lecturer at the
Heritage Foundation. John Cooper, a spokesman for the flagship
conservative think tank, told The Daily Beast that Gorka has been
contracted to give five foreign-policy speeches to “Heritage audiences,”
the fourth of which will take place next month. “Dr. Gorka is an
independent contractor,” Cooper noted. “He is solely responsible for the
content of his speeches and other statements, and his views are not
necessarily those of Heritage or any of its personnel.” Gorka recently
updated his LinkedIn page
to list himself as a Heritage “consultant.” Gorka, who was ousted from
the White House in August, recently joined Fox News as a contributor
after departing from a super PAC run by right-wing “Pizzagate” conspiracy theorists, which he had joined after his brief White House stint.

About Me

Think Tank Watch is a one-stop-shop for learning and thinking about think tanks. It covers domestic and global think tank news, gossip, personnel, reports, studies, and pretty much anything else related to think tanks. Think Tank Watch can be found cruising the mean streets of "Think Tank Row" and beyond, attending scores of think tank events each year. Since its founding in 2012, Think Tank Watch has become the #1 source of think tank news and gossip in the world. Questions, comments, and tips can be sent to:
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